Bitten by Frost
Friday and Saturday night we were hit with frost. The earliest I have seen since we have been here. Nothing too important was lost. Many times there is huge “pre frost stress”…frantically running around covering and harvesting in the wind and rain (and one year I remember, lightening storm). Luckily we had already brought in the sensitive winter squash and pumpkins and we did cover the peppers. The saddest loss was the PYO garden. The forecast was for patchy frost with temps between 35 and 38, I guess we were on the hopeful side.
The animals have surely bundled up. There is a pig pile every morning and the turkeys huddle under their circus tent. Despite the fact that it feels like October already and summer is coming to an end (wait, did we even have a summer?), I can’t complain. I think I can count on one hand how many days over 75 we had and even though it felt like it rained every day for a chunk of time, the working conditions this year have been pretty ideal and the crops look amazing. I still have lots to harvest, and many things could still go wrong, so I hope I am not jinxing myself, but I almost feel like I can take a sigh of relief, another growing year under my belt.
This weekend was full of stocking up for the winter…freezing corn, making salsa, roasting peppers, snapping beans, plucking edemame and whipping up my new winter favorite treat: chimichurri. I hope you have found some space on your storage shelf or freezer for a little taste of summer in winter too.
This week’s bounty: lettuce, chard, tat soi (I am going to keep giving it to you until you eat it all!), carrot, sweet pepper, onion, tomato, spaghetti squash
The Farmer’s Table:
*French toast with Paul’s walnut raisin bread and plum sauce from Zach’s plums
*Bangalore Spicy Eggplant and Rice Casserole
*Beef burritos with chinese cabbage and cucumber/corn/cilantro salsa
*Stir Fry with beef, broccoli, radish, edemame, tat soi and plum sauce
*Italian Casserole with potato, tomato, edemame, hard cheese and sopressatta
The Shareholder’s Table:
“Thank you for the ingredients for the perfect harvest soup.
Purple cabbage and carrots cooked in homemade chicken broth. Pasta added to make it more hearty, then garlic, hot peppers and parsley at the end. And your bread to sop up the broth- what more can I say!”
“Hi Keena. Just thought I would share this with you. I made Succotash that was off the charts with this weeks bounty. Replaced the traditional Lima beans with edamame. It has white wine, basil, parsley, rice vinegar.
All of your food is soooo good.”
